‘From Home to Home’ is a publication created from the 2026 Develop Collective, a youth programme of The Photographers' Gallery in London. Through archival and contemporary photographs and stories, it explores different diaspora experiences, framing home not as a fixed idea, but as an ongoing, collective conversation contributing to a wider dialogue on belonging, visibility, and the evolving fabric of one of the world’s most diverse cities.

The title of this publication came to me in an early meeting with the other members of the Collective. 'From Home to Home' are the words I used as I tried to convey the sentiment of what this project is about to me: navigating the space between multiple places, cultures and generations. It is about what we took from the journeys of our parents and grandparents, from the lands where they were raised, to the countries where they migrated. For me, it captured the ways these manifest in our experience of the cities in which our generation was born.

Inspired by Zadie Smith's preface in ‘Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph',  I saw a place for a similar concept in our publication, and suggested the British Iraqi writer, editor and curator Dalia Al-Dujaili. I have long been a fan of her work, and saw her as a writer who could navigate our experiences as young women from different diaspora backgrounds, but who have London in common. 

For the social media assets I created towards the publication launch, I chose a design that left space to frame and highlight the self-portraits of each contributor. The bold blue was a tribute to my grandmother, Nalini, who migrated from India in 1972. She passed away with dementia just before I started at the Develop Collective, but she left us with her photographs, archives, and memories, and with a home brightened by her saris and textiles that filled our world with colour.